Silver Sloth writes: The New York Times has an article saying that Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon's mobile network available for a text-message program. From TFA

The dispute over the Naral messages is a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of "net neutrality" — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.

"This is right at the heart of the problem," said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school, referring to the treatment of text messages. "The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling."

There's a report in the New Your Times saying that NBC is to end it's contract with iTunes. From TFA

The media conglomerate — which is the No. 1 supplier of digital video to Apple's online store, accounting for about 40 percent of downloads — notified Apple of its decision late yesterday, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity because negotiations between the companies are confidential.

FTA "The man was arrested by two Community Support Officers who became suspicious after spotting him using his laptop whilst sitting on a wall outside a house in Prebend Gardens, Chiswick.
Further questioning revealed that he was surfing the web using the home owner's unsecured wireless connection.
The offence is a relatively new one, though a recent survey by Cisco suggests it may be far more common than most people realise. Around one in three "mobile employees" hijack wireless connections, with excuses ranging from "I can't tell whose connection I'm using" to the more startling, "I don't want to pay for my own connection.""

Silver Sloth writes: The University Of Illinois has published a report that the polar sea ice cap is at a minimum since satelite tracking began. From TFA

Today, the Northern Hemisphere sea ice area broke the record for the lowest recorded ice area in recorded history. The new record came a full month before the historic summer minimum typically occurs. There is still a month or more of melt likely this year. It is therefore almost certain that the previous 2005 record will be annihilated by the final 2007 annual minima closer to the end of this summer.

Phurge writes: http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/veto-for-parents-on -web/2007/08/09/1186530535350.html
"Internet service providers will be forced to filter web content at the request of parents, under a $189 million Federal Government crackdown on online bad language, pornography and child sex predators"
"Today Mr Howard will hail the ISP filtering measure as a world first by any Government, and is expected to offer funding to help cover the cost. Parents will be able to request the ISP filter option when they sign up with an ISP. It will be compulsory to provide it."

Silver Sloth writes: The British Observer newspaper — dead tree version so no URL — reports that Donald_Michie died yesterday in a car accident.

Whilst not a name that all will know, especially on a US centred site like/., Donald Michie was a major force in British computing working at Bletchley Park and founding the Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception at Edinburgh University.

airshowfan writes: "Applicable laws say that Google Maps Street View is NOT a violation of privacy. The most relevant law here is probably the one used by Jennifer Aniston to sue a paparazzo! It says that an invasion of privacy only occurs when someone looks into your window while using "enhancing devices" (telephoto lenses, binoculars, etc) and sees/takes a picture that is more detailed than what a passerby could see from the street with the naked eye. So as long as Google's images are not as sharp as what you could see as you walk past, Google should be ok. This article explains these issues of how private your home really is, and goes into issues of surveillance and sousveillance, of how much privacy one can expect while in a public place, and of how the information age is all about organizing the crumbs of information you leave behind. It is no longer reasonable to expect that your information trail cannot be easily organized, interpreted, and broadcast to the world."Link to Original Source

Dear Customer,
Thank you for using ******** as your hosting provider.
******** has reason to believe some User Names and Passwords may have been compromised. ******* customer's credit card information has not been accessed.
To ensure website security, we mandate that you change your password for your account. If you do not change your password, ******** will automatically change it for you.
To change your password, please log into your account at www.********.com and access "User Settings" within the Control Panel.
If your password has been changed by ****** you will receive an email notice.
If you would like to retrieve your password, please visit www.********.com, select "Customer Login" at the top of the page, then select "I forgot my password".
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kindest Regards,
******* Support — - —

My passwd was already changed which has now broken my wordpress blog of course. I am happy for the quick action, but I feel really let down and considering to switch over to a big name place like godaddy.
What would you do ?"

A hammerhead shark that gave birth in a Nebraska aquarium reproduced without mating

Also from TFA

At the time of the birth, many scientists thought that the female had mated with another species, or that it had used sperm obtained years before. Female sharks are capable of storing sperm, although none have been known to store it as long as these sharks had been isolated.
But through the analysis "it was pretty clear that there was no male contribution," said Mahmood S. Shivji, director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and author of a paper on the finding being published online today by the journal Biology Letters.

coondoggie writes: "Jack Nilles was designing space vehicles and communications systems for the U.S. Air Force and NASA when he began thinking about how telecommunications could replace energy-depleting and time-consuming daily work commutes. He coined the term telecommuting and telework in the early 1970s while working at the University of Southern California on projects aimed at eliminating rush-hour drives by letting employees work closer to home — or at home — via telecommunications links. Nilles today is the head of JALA International, a management consulting firm he founded dedicated to promoting the use of telework. In this interview he looks a the key issues facing teleworkers.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/051507-telec ommuting-nilles-security.html"

An anonymous reader writes: The Financial Times writes that Sony's profits plunged 68% due to the laptop battery recall and losses on the PS3. They shipped 5.5m PS3s in the year just ended (the target was 6m). They sold only 3.6m units. Sony thinks that its games division will not make a profit until 2008/09. Uh-oh...

The company said Tuesday that it would expand a test of a system that allows advertisers to pay only when an ad spurs a consumer to take an action, be it purchasing a product, subscribing to a newsletter or signing up to receive a quote from a mortgage broker or car dealer.

Although this is not a new idea, again from TFA

The model has long been used online by "affiliate marketing" companies like ValueClick, which have created networks of hundreds or thousands of Web sites that display small ads for e-commerce sites. The publishers are paid when they refer a user who makes a purchase.